


He Waits for Winter

by Edgebug



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Snow Angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edgebug/pseuds/Edgebug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean is seven years old, he meets an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Waits for Winter

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC PROMPTED BY ANIMALMAGNETISM ON TUMBLR! "A weird, mystic realism AU where snow angels come to life during the winter and disappear after the last snow melts. TRAGIC, STAR-CROSSED DESTIEL LOVERS UNITED ONLY BY THE WINDS OF WINTER."

When Dean is seven years old, he meets an angel.

He’s always loved snowfall; loves how the cold makes his fingers numb and his bones shake. He loves the way his feet make prints in the white blanket, loves the way his eyelashes catch flakes and blur his vision. He loves watching how the ravens sail joyously through the air and roll down the snowy hills just for the fun of it.

He likes mornings; he bundles up and settles on the back porch and watches the sun rise, watches the snow fall, watches the ravens.

(He feeds them. Steals birdseed from his mother’s parrot and sometimes bread or scraps from the table.)

One morning he sees something strange.

At first he thinks it is just an especially large raven; but as it flies closer, sails nearer to the ground, he sees that it is a boy; a boy his age, a boy with wide, black, feathered wings. (He is not frightened. He has heard of the angels, the snow angels; but they are rare, and he has never seen one.) He scrambles to his feet, dashes out through the snow. “Hey!” he calls.

The boy looks up at him with blue eyes as clear as ice; his skin flour-pale and perfect. He does not have the skinned knees that Dean almost constantly sports; he does not have any scars at all. He wears white clothing, shorts and a shirt, it looks like. Dean thinks that he is beautiful.

“Hello,” the boy replies, his voice quiet. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dean,” Dean says, and he sticks out his hand for the angel to shake, because that’s what you do when you meet someone.

The angel boy tilts his head, eyes flicking to Dean’s hand. “I am Castiel,” he murmurs, and tentatively reaches out to take Dean’s hand. Castiel’s fingers are warmer than Dean expected; still cold, but not like the snow beneath them. “You are friend to ravens,” he says, a little louder, “so you are friend to me.”

“Oh,” Dean says, “so, do you want to play?”

Castiel does.

 

 

When Dean is seventeen years old, he falls in love with an angel.

Castiel has grown up with him; has appeared every year for the past ten years. They spend their winters together. (Dean’s parents view the angel as a good omen; the angel is a harbinger of good.) They sled down hills, they climb the empty trees, they feed the ravens and sometimes, sometimes Castiel tries to take Dean flying. They never make it more than six feet off the ground, but that is all right.

They teach the ravens to sing. Sometimes they whistle the music that Dean listens to, and sometimes it’s old angelic hymns. Dean loves it all.

Castiel is present for sometimes two months, sometimes three. Dean has learned to religiously watch the weather forecasts; he mourns when the weather begins to warm. When the last snow melts, Castiel shimmers out of existence, disappears until next winter’s snow begins.

It means that Dean is cold for three months at a time, because he hardly spends any time in the house.

It’s all right. Castiel keeps him all right; Castiel has magics and can put two fingers on Dean’s forehead and warm him from the inside out, and it’s weird at first but Dean appreciates it.

He kisses Castiel for the first time on year ten, as the sun rises overhead and their elaborate snow sculptures begin to melt, as the trees begin to bud out green. Dean presses his lips to Castiel’s cool ones and he clings tight to him until Castiel is naught but cool vapor against his skin and songs that the ravens sing overhead.

 

 

When Dean is twenty-seven years old, his angel presents him with a ring.

“A token of our bond,” he murmurs. It is icy against Dean’s finger, a constant reminder of winter and of his beloved.

He brings Castiel into his home; he leaves the windows open in their bedroom so that it will be cold enough for him. Castiel smiles, warms him gently with two fingers to the forehead, wraps him up in his feathery wings.

“Wish you didn’t have to go,” Dean whispers against Castiel’s paper-white skin, “why can’t you stay?”

“I do stay, Dean,” he whispers, “I am the cool breeze in summer and the leaves in the fall, I am the sound of wind chimes in the gardens. I am the joy of the ravens. I never leave you, Dean.”

Dean buries his face against Castiel’s neck, and that is the moment he stops mourning the spring.

 

 

Dean is eighty-seven years old, and he waits for the winter.


End file.
